


The Death of Me

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1940s, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Noir, Angst, Blood, Established Relationship, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Private Investigators, Sort of anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 09:39:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8573395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: Grantaire's a private detective who never expected Enjolras to walk back into his life, let alone his office. But when Enjolras does, Grantaire knows it's only a matter of time before everything goes south.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [pictures-and-love-lost](http://pictures-and-love-lost.tumblr.com/), who requested an E/R noir detective fic. Since the closest thing I think I’ve ever seen to a noir film is _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_ , I did what I could.
> 
> Usual disclaimer applies. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos.

If it wasn’t for the squeaky stair third down on the staircase, Grantaire might have slept right through the arrival at his office. He was sprawled back in his seat, feet up on his desk, his tie loosened and the top button of his shirt undone. His jacket was crumpled on the floor in front of the corner cabinet, where the bottom door hung slightly open, revealing a peak of a few bottles full of amber liquid. **  
**

One such bottle hung limply in Grantaire’s hand, only staying put by the grace of God, its amber contents all but gone. The stair squeaked and Grantaire shifted, a large snore interrupted as he snuffled to wakefulness. “Whozzer?” he asked automatically, blinking into the dim light.

A shadowed silhouette appeared in the fogged glass of his office door, a silhouette revealing narrow shoulders and curls jammed under the outline of a fedora. Though the features were obscured by the large, peeling words “GRAND R INVESTIGATIONS”, the breath still caught in Grantaire’s throat. He would have known that silhouette anywhere.

And when the door opened, when the feeble light from Grantaire’s desk lamp illuminated the man’s face, Grantaire’s deepest wishes and biggest fears came true all at once.

_They say you never forget your first love. I think they’re wrong. I’ve had many loves, from high class dames to working class dolls, and I’d be hardpressed to remember most of their names._

_But I think there’s always one love you remember. Romantics would call that person your soulmate, or the love of your life. Hogwash. I’d call him the biggest pain in my ass. Ruined my life in more ways than one. Showed up when I least wanted, breezed out just when I realized I couldn’t live without him. And one way or another, I always figured he’d be the death of me._

_And now here he was, standing in my office again._

_Christ, I need a drink._

Enjolras smoothed an invisible wrinkle on his impeccably pressed pants and Grantaire swallowed hard, watching Enjolras’s hand trail up his thigh. Almost compulsively, he reached for the bottle in its usual spot on his desk, and let out a small noise of dismay when he found it empty. Enjolras glanced up at the sound, something close to a smile playing on his lips. “Problem?” he asked, his voice low and musical.

“Nothing,” Grantaire said gruffly, tossing the empty bottle with perhaps more force than necessary into the wastebasket. “So you say you’re being stalked.”

Enjolras uncrossed his legs and recrossed them, Grantaire’s eyes following the motion and missing the wrinkle that appeared in Enjolras’s forehead. “I _am_ being stalked,” Enjolras said, a little curtly. “Three times this past week I noticed someone following me, and this morning, I found these on my doorstep.”

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out three photographs, which he tossed on Grantaire’s desk. Grantaire leaned forward, examining the photos without touching them. All three were of Enjolras, all three taken from close enough that he could see the details of Enjolras’s curls yet from obviously far enough away that the photographer wouldn’t be seen. “You can hardly blame someone for wanting to take a picture of you, sweetheart,” Grantaire told Enjolras. “You’re a work of art in any form.”

A muscle twitched in Enjolras’s jaw. “ _Don’t_ call me sweetheart,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “And these pictures were delivered to a safe house that no one besides Combeferre and Courfeyrac even know exist!”

“That sounds like a problem for the police, not a private dick like me,” Grantaire said mildly, sitting back in his chair.

Enjolras shook his head impatiently. “You know damn well why I can’t go to the police!” he snapped. “So a private investigator is my only option. Grantaire, you _have_ to help me!”

Grantaire stood, fumbling in his pockets for a cigarette, which he lit, mostly to have something to do with his hands. He took a long drag, then exhaled, letting the smoke hang in the air. “You lost whatever right you had to order me around years ago.”

For a moment, Enjolras looked surprised. Then he cocked his head slightly, a coy smiling curving his lips. “Did I ever have that right?”

“Maybe,” Grantaire grunted, turning to look out the window. “And you might still have it. If you hadn’t left.”

Grantaire could practically feel Enjolras roll his eyes. “Is _that_ what this is about?” Enjolras asked, exasperated, and Grantaire could hear him get to his feet and approach, but he made no move to turn around. “You know why I had to leave.”

Shrugging, Grantaire took another drag on his cigarette. “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Knowing doesn’t make it sting any less, sweetheart.”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras sighed, and his hand slowly slid up Grantaire’s back to rest against his shoulder.

_How many times had it started like this? A simple argument, bickering over nothing, Enjolras sighing my name in that tone of voice...and typically ending with either him or me bent over the desk._

_Those were the days._

_Not that we’d see a repeat performance today. Too much had happened between us and there’s some bad blood that can’t be erased, not even by wicked lips._

_But God, it doesn’t hurt to dream._

Suddenly, the sound of gunfire and shattering glass split the air, and instinctively, Grantaire whirled, grabbing Enjolras by the shoulders and pulling him to the ground, covering him with his own body without a second thought. After a long moment, the gunshots ceased, and Enjolras made as if to move, but Grantaire held him down. “Wait,” he murmured, his lips moving against the back of Enjolras’s head.

Sure enough, the gunfire started again, firing through what had been the window for another thirty seconds before stopping, followed this time by the sound screeching tires as cars sped away. Slowly, Grantaire and Enjolras sat up, Grantaire’s hands still resting on Enjolras’s shoulders. “Are you alright?” Grantaire asked.

Enjolras turned to face him, his blue eyes burning and a cut on his cheek from the broken glass oozing blood. “I’m fine,” Enjolras said, reaching up to wipe away the blood like an angry tear, but Grantaire’s hand was already there, wiping the blood away with the pad of his thumb.

Then they were kissing, Grantaire’s hand cupping Enjolras’s cheek, the other buried in his blond curls. Enjolras’s hands were balled in Grantaire’s shirt. And both were ignoring the shattered glass and bullet holes that surrounded them.

_There are some things in life that just bring people together. In my line of work, I’ve found that attempted murder is one of those things. There’s no seduction quite like it._

_Of course, it’s worse than cheap booze when it wears off, and the hangover isn’t as easy to shake. What’s worse, you’re left with more than a headache -- you’re left with someone who wants to kill you, and isn’t likely to stop once they realize you’ve survived the first attempt._

_But for now, you’ve got a gorgeous bird in your arms, adrenaline pumping through your veins, and no need to worry about the consequences._

_At least, not yet._

“So who wants to kill you?” Grantaire asked, shrugging his shirt back on. Enjolras raised an eyebrow at him and Grantaire rephrased, “Who wants to kill you this time?”

Enjolras shrugged, buttoning the buttons on his own shirt with deft fingers. “Hard to say. The mafia is always a likely answer, given my line of work, and there’s a few renegade cops I wouldn’t put it past. But neither have both this amount of firepower and obvious lack of skill.”

Grantaire frowned. “Sweetheart, if you’re implying what I think you’re implying--” Enjolras’s eyes narrowed and Grantaire groaned. “Christ, Thenardier? Again? Isn’t there ever a different bad guy in your saga?”

Enjolras held his hands up defensively. “Look, you asked who would want to kill, he’s the first one to come to mind. It’s not _my_ fault--” Grantaire glared at him. “Sure, we stopped a few shipments he was making into the city, but that was mostly me doing my job.”

“Your job is gonna get you killed one of these days, sweetheart,” Grantaire said dryly, slowly picking himself up off the floor. “And at this rate, it’s gonna get me killed as well.”

For a moment, something close to guilt flashed across Enjolras’s expression. “Will you help me, then? Please. I need to know if it is Thenardier after me.”

Grantaire lit another cigarette. “And if it is? What will that tell you?”

“If it is, perhaps it’s time to take the problem out once and for all,” Enjolras said.

Grantaire inhaled so hard on his cigarette that he choked. “Are you out of your pretty little mind?” he asked, in between coughs. “Take out Thenardier? You might as well just sign your own death certificate at this point!”

Enjolras raised his chin defiantly. “Maybe so, but at least I can do some good in this world before that happens.” He hesitated before adding, “And I need your help, Grantaire. Please.”

Grantaire shook his head and flicked his cigarette out of the open space that used to be the windows to his office. “Well, since you said please,” he sighed. “I always knew you would be the death of me, sweetheart. I just didn’t know how.”

A car drove slowly down the street outside the office and both Grantaire and Enjolras froze. “Come on,” Enjolras said, after the car’s headlights disappeared. “I know a safe place we can go. To plan.” He picked up his fedora, ruefully wiggling a finger through the bullet hole in the brim, and placed it over his blond curls. “Come on.”

“Just a moment,” Grantaire said, heading over to the corner cabinet and bending down to pick up a bottle full of amber-colored booze. “Alright. Now I’m ready.”

_The thing about planning a suicide mission is that the plan doesn’t really matter. But if the plan allows you to spend some time with the biggest pain in your ass, then so be it. And if you can spend some of that time not planning, well, that’s fine, too._

_But in the end, the plan will be made, and then your sorry ass is gonna have to be the one who carries it out, with nothing but your revolver and prayers to see you through._

_If there’s any justice in the world, you’ll meet your maker on a sunny, warm day with birds chirping and the sound of your lover’s laugh in your ear. If there’s not, you’ll be crouched behind a smelly barrel of fish on a dock in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain._

_Three guesses as to which I got. And you won’t need the first two._

Finding out who was stalking Enjolras was easy enough: stalkers rarely notice someone stalking them. Making the stalker talk about who hired him was also easy. Grantaire left that task to Enjolras, who had always had a way of...persuading reluctant people to spill their guts. Grantaire had just never had the stomach for those methods.

Knowing what to do with the information they got was the harder part, and in the end, it really only took Enjolras’s stubborn ass driving himself to the docks where Thenardier’s operation was located to drag the reluctant Grantaire along.

“I don’t know what you plan to get out of this,” Grantaire hissed to Enjolras as they parked the car a block up from the docks. “I know you think you’re going to ‘take care of’ the problem, but this is Thenardier’s home base. There’ll be practically a whole army in there.”

Enjolras turned to smile at Grantaire. “That’s why Combeferre and Courfeyrac are on the other side of town, starting trouble at the warehouse where Thenardier is storing his latest score. Thenardier will move the bulk of his men to deal with that, leaving his headquarters open for the taking.”

Grantaire frowned. “The bulk of his men?” he asked.

Enjolras reached inside his jacket to pull out his revolver. “And the rest we can deal with.”

Grantaire sighed and unholstered his own gun. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

The plan went wrong almost immediately. The fog coming in from the sea hid them for the most part, allowing them to get onto the docks unseen, but either Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s antics hadn’t drawn Thenardier’s men off, or there were simply more men than Enjolras was anticipating.

Which led Grantaire to be crouched behind a barrel of fish, Enjolras behind the crate next to him. “There’s too many,” Grantaire hissed as they watched three men unloading a boat while a dozen more watched, all armed. “We can try to sneak out, come up with a better plan.”

“By the time we come up with another plan, Thenardier will know that we flipped his stalker,” Enjolras shot back. “And then he’ll make his move to take me out for good -- and probably you as well.”

“So, what, it’s either die here or die later?” Grantaire asked skeptically. “If it’s alright with you, sweetheart, I’ll opt for later.”

Enjolras shook his head. “If I die here, in the service of the Cause, it’ll inspire others to rise to take my place. Getting gunned down in my own territory...that’ll just drive our allies underground.”

Grantaire groaned and leaned forward to rest his head against the barrel. “Always the Cause with you, isn’t it?” he asked, mostly rhetorically, since he knew the answer.

For the first time all evening, Enjolras hesitated, and Grantaire squinted to try to see his expression through the fog. “If you left, I would understand. This isn’t your fight.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “The hell it isn’t,” he said, ducking around the barrel to crouch beside Enjolras behind the crate. “I always knew you’d be the death of me,” he told Enjolras, his voice low and urgent, and he leaned in and kissed him, lightly. “Just didn’t think I’d be the death of you, too, sweetheart.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Enjolras told him, and he kissed Grantaire once before checking his revolver. “I’ve got six bullets.”

Grantaire checked his own gun. “Five.” He raised an eyebrow at Enjolras. “At least we’ll take out eleven on our way.”

Enjolras smiled slightly. “Did I ever tell you that I loved you?”

“No,” Grantaire said. “And I wouldn’t start now.” He cocked his gun and peered around the crate. “I’ll see you in the next life, sweetheart.” He leveled his gun at the closest guy. “And I’ll see this fella in hell.”

In perfect synchronization, Enjolras and Grantaire stood up from behind the crate, both of their guns blazing, both with a grim look of determination and something close to a smile on their faces. When they finally fell onto the cold, wet dock, neither was smiling. Grantaire coughed, a bubble of blood bursting at the corner of his mouth. “And here I always figured we’d die holding hands.”

Enjolras’s answering laugh was weak. “My hand’s here, if you can reach it.”

Grantaire tried to reach out with trembling fingers but didn’t quite make it before he lost strength. “Close enough,” he mumbled. 

“Sorry to…” Enjolras started, trailing off for a long moment before managing to finish. “Sorry to have been the death of you.”

Grantaire’s chest heaved with what might have been laughter, or else a struggle for air. “Don’t be,” he said, so quiet it was barely audible, the fog in front of his eyes thickening into blackness. “There’s no way I’d rather go, sweetheart.”

_And really, there wasn’t._  



End file.
